MPL 2 section 11

Lawrence Rosen lrosen at rosenlaw.com
Tue Nov 23 22:21:09 UTC 2010


I think folks may be expecting too much from the Section 11 and Exhibit A
language. The sole purpose of Section 11 appears to be to provide a basis in
the license for this notice: "Pursuant to Section 11, this file may be
distributed as part of a Larger Work licensed under the GPL or LGPL." That
is a true statement, regardless of Section 11. Not only that, there is
nothing in *any* approved open source license about which this cannot be
said. 

Let's parse section 11:

> 11. Compatibility with Secondary Licenses.
> ------------------------------------------
>
> 11.1. "Secondary License" means either the GNU General Public License, 
> Version 2.0 or later, or the GNU Lesser General Public License, 
> Version 2.1 or later.

So far, just a definition. 

> 11.2. The initial Contributor may designate Covered Software as 
> "Compatible Software" by adding the notice described in Exhibit A to 
> that Covered Software.

OK. So far, just a definition and a permission to "designate."

> 11.3. Notwithstanding the requirements of Section 3.1, if You create a 
> Larger Work by combining Compatible Software with a work governed by a 
> Secondary License, You may also distribute the Larger Work under the 
> terms of the Secondary License.

True enough; we can do that with Compatible Software. Indeed, we can do that
with "ALL" open source software, regardless of the license. We've had the
right all along to "distribute the Larger Work under the terms of [ANY open
source or] Secondary License." Section 11 of MPL 2 doesn't grant me any
right I didn't already have.

If, however, the sole purpose of your Section 11 is to *limit* combinations
of MPL 2 software only to GPL- and/or MPL-licensed Larger Works, you'll have
to say that more clearly. But then your license won't pass the OSD tests.

Either that, or define "combining" in 11.3 with greater clarity.

/Larry



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tzeng, Nigel H. [mailto:Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 10:08 AM
> To: Schmitz, Patrice-Emmanuel; John Cowan
> Cc: Simon Phipps; OSI License Review
> Subject: Re: MPL 2 section 11
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/23/10 11:17 AM, "Schmitz, Patrice-Emmanuel"
> <patrice-emmanuel.schmitz at be.unisys.com> wrote:
> 
> > John Cowan scripsit:
> >
> >> Schmitz, Patrice-Emmanuel scripsit:
> >>
> >>> I naively believe that option 2 is the right one from MF point of
> >>> view and that the value of FOSS software increases when it is the
> most
> >>> widely used, not when restricting this freedom of use.
> >>
> >> Well, that's why permissive licenses exist, but the MPL is not one
> >> of them.
> >
> > Exactly, John! This is the reason why interoperability must be
> implemented
> > between the most used copyleft licenses, meaning MPL, OSL, GPL, EUPL,
> Eclipse.
> > The list is small and there is no need for extending to permissive
> licenses,
> > which have their own utility and do not have copyleft conflict
> issues.
> 
> They still have copyleft conflict issues in as much as copylefted open
> source can often not be reused on permissive open source projects due
> to the
> license.
> 
> Solving copyleft incompatibilities with GPL has only in favor of GPL
> and not
> with MPL anyway.  The FSF has shown no indication that compatibility
> with
> other copyleft is even a desirable trait except when it is in their
> favor.
> 
> Personally, I would prefer MPL to provide compatibility with other open
> source licenses that reciprocates compatibility.  I don't see the need
> to
> needlessly explicitly perpetuate one-way sharing.





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